Now on ScienceBlogs: And so, driven on ceaselessly toward new shores
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. - Terry Pratchett
Laelaps is the blog of Brian Switek, a freelance science writer based in New Jersey. This blog frequently features his musings on paleontology, evolution, and the history of science. Switek also blogs for Smithsonian magazine's Dinosaur Tracking.
Switek's first book, Written in Stone, will be published next year by Bellevue Literary Press.
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December 31, 2007
Category: Books
You know you've got a unique book on your hands when the cover spots a eurypterid snagging a jackalope from under the cab of a Ford pickup carrying a disgruntled ammonite while dinosaurs stomp towards a "last chance" food...
Posted by Brian Switek at 7:26 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Administrative
In about 6 hours I'll have to start remembering to date everything 2008 instead of 2007, but otherwise the year will tick over like another mile on an odometer. I don't really have many resolutions, at least not moreso...
Posted by Brian Switek at 5:54 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Dinosaurs
When I was a kid nearly every dinosaur book and documentary had at least one common phrase that was uttered over and over again; "Dinosaurs have been found on every continent, except Antarctica." By 1986, though, this could not...
Posted by Brian Switek at 9:25 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 30, 2007
Revered and reviled, the wolf embodies the concept of the "noble savage," a sort of respectable wildness that is both admired and feared. Presently many populations of wolves in North America continue on at the indulgence of our own...
Posted by Brian Switek at 9:40 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Dinosaurs
As much as I love the mount of Barnum Brown's famous Tyrannosaurus skeleton at the AMNH, one of my absolute favorite reconstructions is the one pictured above from the Maryland Science Museum in Baltimore. While many Tyrannosaurus mounts have...
Posted by Brian Switek at 8:33 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 29, 2007
Category: Evolution
The evolution of life on earth has no direction and no predetermined end; what is adaptive today might not be tomorrow, and the scores of extinct creatures preserved in the rocks of this planet attest to an ongoing process that...
Posted by Brian Switek at 12:34 PM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Cats
The Snow Leopard (Panthera uncia) is one of the most most endangered big cats, and while there are many laws and programs that seek to protect the animals poaching is still a problem. Earlier this year NPR featured a...
Posted by Brian Switek at 9:51 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 28, 2007
Category: Administrative
Despite all the work I put into it this evening, my post on whether evolution is directed or not is still unfinished. I've completed most of it, but I want to go over it again and choose my words carefully...
Posted by Brian Switek at 11:30 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Mammals
Following up on yesterday's post on marsupials, here's a photo of two Gray Kangaroo (Macropus sp.) at the Turtleback Zoo in New Jersey. The largest macropod to have ever lived, though, was the extinct Procoptodon goliath, a short-faced giant...
Posted by Brian Switek at 12:22 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 27, 2007
Category: Evolution
The famous footage of "Benjamin," a Thylacine that died in captivity due to neglect on September 7, 1936. It was the last known living member of its species. Convergent evolution can be a tricky thing, and one of the...
Posted by Brian Switek at 10:00 PM • 29 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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